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20 items

• Americanah

  a Novel

  Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 1977-

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  Ifemelu, the Nigerian expat and Princeton lecturer at the heart of this latest novel by Orange Prize winner Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun), writes biting, dead-on blog posts taking aim at the cultural schism between non-African blacks, Africans, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Evicted

  Poverty and Profit in the American City

  Desmond, Matthew,

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  Desmond's (sociology, Harvard Univ.) eye-opening and revelatory book clearly conveys that one will never truly understand poverty without grappling with the crisis of precarious housing. The narrative follows the lives of several families and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Golden Gates

  Fighting for Housing in America

  Dougherty, Conor,

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  Economics reporter Dougherty's first book identifies housing as a profound American social and economic challenge which also influences other problems, from educational gaps and racial disparity to climate change.

• The Yellow House

  Broom, Sarah M,

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  This ambitious, haunting memoir of home, movement, displacement, loss, and persistence allows Broom to offer an intimate, closely observed history of her family over nearly a hundred years. At its center is the author's mother, Ivory Mae Broom, who…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• There There

  Orange, Tommy, 1982-

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  DEBUT Orange's visceral first novel, set in past and present-day Oakland, weaves more than ten plot lines involving the lives of Native Americans. All intersect in a crescendo of violence at the Oakland Powwow. Tony Loneman starts off the narrative…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• $2.00 a Day

  Living on Almost Nothing in America

  Edin, Kathryn J.

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  In their research, coauthors Edin (sociology & public health, Johns Hopkins; Promises I Can't Keep) and Shaefer (Univ. of Michigan Sch. of Social Work) easily found people living on less than two dollars a day in every region of the United States.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Invisible Child

  Poverty, Survival & Hope in An American City

  Elliott, Andrea,

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  Expanding on her five-part series on child homelessness that appeared in the New York Times in 2013, this absorbing debut by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Elliott follows Dasani, the oldest of eight siblings, between 2012 and 2020.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

  Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals

  Hartman, Saidiya V,

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  As black women streamed into cities at the turn of the 20th century looking for better lives, they struggled to push back at a system that forced them into domestic work, sexual violence, and police brutality. Hartman (English & comparative…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Island of Missing Trees

  Shafak, Elif, 1971-

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  Booker-shortlisted Shafak (10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World) amazes with this resonant story of the generational trauma of the Cypriot Civil War. Just before Christmas in the late 2010s, 16-year-old Ada Kazantzakis confounds her London…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Last Summer on State Street

  A Novel

  Wolfe, Toya

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  A striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.

• New York 2140

  Robinson, Kim Stanley,

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  Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides

• America Is Not the Heart

  Castillo, Elaine,

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• Wandering Stars

  Orange, Tommy, 1982-

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• On the Rooftop

  Sexton, Margaret Wilkerson,

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• The Sum of Us

  What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

  McGhee, Heather, 1980-

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  McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Mississippi to Maine, tallying up what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm--the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others.

• The Color of Law

  a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

  Rothstein, Richard,

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  The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation -- the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments -- that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

• Generation Priced Out

  Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America

  Shaw, Randy, 1956-

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  Generation Priced Out is a call for action on one of the most talked about issues of our time: how skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing out the working and middle-class from urban America.

• Hella Town

  Oakland's History of Development and Disruption

  Schwarzer, Mitchell,

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  Mitchell Schwarzer emphasizes the ways transportation networks, housing, industry, commerce, and civic and park projects together shaped a social and political terrain that continues to be defined by class and racial inequalities.

• Golden Dreams

  California in An Age of Abundance, 1950-1963

  Starr, Kevin

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  It is a book that transcends its stated subject to offer a wealth of insight into the growth of the Sun Belt and the West and indeed the dramatic transformation of America itself in these pivotal years following the Second World War

• Race for Profit

  How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership

  Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta,

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  Chronicle of the twilight of redlining and the introduction of conventional real estate practices into the Black urban market, uncovering a transition from racist exclusion to predatory inclusion.